"Magic Hunter' bullets hit mark

Published 4:00 am, Friday, July 5, 1996

THE THING about Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi's interesting "Magic Hunter" is that it's difficult to explain in any useful or linear terms.

It's a departure from her equally interesting and impossible to describe "My 20th Century," but only in that she's chosen another way to be both clear and obfuscatory at the same time. Not too many people can do that.

This story, rolling back and forth in time, is framed by the diversion a mother is spinning to distract her frightened child while waiting out a raid in an underground bomb shelter. Her story is a magic one. A hunter sells his soul to the devil for seven magic bullets that will always hit their mark. But the hunter doesn't know that the last bullet is programmed to hit a target decided by the devil himself.

Then suddenly the movie is about Max (Gary Kemp), an expert police marksman who unluckily shoots the hostage he was meant to protect. The department loses confidence in him. Nervous that he will not pass the marksman test his superiors have asked him to take, he accepts three special bullets from fellow officer Kaspar (Peter Vallai), a devilish looking guy. He hits three bull's-eyes.

Max will do anything for more of these magic bullets and when he gets his hands on some he keeps them in his pocket at all times, just in case.

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His next assignment is to protect a visiting Russian chess master called Maxim (Alexander Kaidanovsky). Maxim has refused a bodyguard, so Max must tail him secretly and hope to thwart any assassin's plans.

But while tailing Maxim, Max finds that the chess master is meeting Max's wife, Eva (Sadie Frost), and courting her. Although Max has been sworn to secrecy about his assignment, he fears for his wife's safety when she's near Maxim, and, besides, he's jealous. So he tells them both that he's been following them.

All of this is achieved by Enyedi with a light touch and a minimum of dialogue (in Hungarian with English subtitles). Kaidanovsky is properly imperious and Kemp is properly anguished (and he looks like a young Tony Franciosa).

Intercut with Max's story are some messy flashbacks to medieval times during which Christianity is clashing with goddess worship and a huge portrait of the Virgin Mary comes to life to save frightened rabbits. There are also references to Weber's opera "Der Freischutz," the story and music of which originally inspired Enyedi's movie.

On the whole, the movie would seem a lot neater and cleaner if it stuck with the present-day story of the sharpshooter and the chess master. But Enyedi's visuals, shot by Tibor Mathe, are often beautiful enough to distract you from narrative failings.